Day 4178 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Titus 2:14 NIV

identifies our identity

And realizes that all this time it’s simply been waiting for us to stop worrying so much as we all sadly have about all that we think we need to have and have come to want and for whatever reason once chose to do. Now granted, all of those things do play a part in defining who we are as they all are all these little parts and pieces that have, at times, been held inside our hearts and seemed to even maybe have offered us peace, hope, joy and purpose.

Even if albeit in pieces.

But that’s the realization that we’re all going to realize someday. Or it’s at the very least a part of it. It’s that within this life as is being lived by all of us who are alive here now, the very best of anything we’ve ever had or held or hoped we could was destined to be only diluted, divided, endangered, indifferent. And that’s because everything here is bound forever to an inescapable transitory nature. And we all know this perfectly well because all of us have in life held so many moments in which life finally felt right only to watch them fade and that to the sound of struggle or sadness or shame coming back our way.

And too we’ve all had those days in which not much was going our way when all of the sudden something just shifted and things started smoothing out a little more.

What’s strange to me is how easily, commonly, normally we all seem of this ability to imagine that the two are somehow so different from one another. That our self-perceived ‘good days’ are from God whilst our decidedly, perhaps even measurably more difficult or disastrous days must then not be. And sure, I understand why we see it that way. It’s because we’ve all been told that God is good and, well, perhaps more than anything I like to believe that all of us have at least something of an optimist living inside of us.

I believe that we all believe in good, in reason, in right and righteousness and the necessity of all the above being the things that we all seek for most in life.

Indeed, I even believe that most folks are down here trying their best to do whatever it is that they think they should be.

Problem is that this world we’re in has offered us so many choices from which to choose whatever it is that we do, and that alongside an arguably even more extensive list of reasons as to why our doing something different would probably be even better, that we honestly don’t really know what we’re doing at all. Ever. For one day something we’re trying to do or be or become is considered, at least by some, something that we should be. But then the very same (at least somewhat accepted) ideal is or will be replaced by something else that the masses have become convinced, overnight, is a better way to spend this life.

And that’s because this world is ever-shifting in what is a version of life ever-sifting through what is the ashes and wreckage of what have been billions of lives all lived seeking for mostly only the very same things.

For all of us want to feel good, to feel healthy, to feel strong and capable of living a decent life. All of us want to feel as if we’re doing good, that what we’re doing matters, that at least some of what we do might actually mean something or help someone. All of us want to laugh and have some fun and make some memories that we can carry with us to lean on whenever times inevitably get hard again and we’ll need by then those snapshots of what is the hope that life isn’t falling apart, and that hopefully nor then shall we.

Indeed, I believe that everyone here is looking for hope, for happiness, for peace and joy and purpose.

But again, the problem’s been that this world we’re in sells such things inside basically everything. And what makes this all even worse is that we’ve all endured so many of life’s rougher days that we’ve all become rather willing to try, to do, to say or think or buy or believe just about anything that pretty much anyone says may help, if even just a little bit or for only just a little while.

In truth life here has devolved into some kind of mangled misunderstanding of what life was rather meant to be in which anymore all we find is only ourselves usually more angry than we are happy, more frustrated than we are at peace, filled with more fear than we have much hope, overcome with doubt where confidence or certainty may have once been found, feeling down instead of able to laugh, led by hate as opposed to following the path of love.

All because all of this life’s become something that it was never meant to be.

And sadly, so too then have all of we.

For all of us have lived this life trying all we could to try and find those few rather simple and in fact entirely understandable ideals such as love and hope and peace and purpose. But we’ve come to find them, or at least assume we feel them, within so many different places and possessions and priorities and plans and opinions that the reality of life itself is that it’s been all but stripped of its meaning, of its reason, of the reason that we all have one and the childlike curiosity as to both why and what all we might do with it since we do.

Anymore we just wake up every day already given away to doing probably pretty much the same things as yesterday. And, as always, I say this as guilty as anybody as my days are anymore so regimented and rigid that I cannot imagine doing much of anything any different. I’m talking right down to what time I start cooking my dinner being based upon how long it takes to cook what are only about 3-4 different meals, all of them begun so that I can have them done so that I can start eating at 7:40 every evening.

Is that truly what’s supposed to matter so much as it does? Is that what this life was meant to become?

Am I who I was meant to become so long as I remain some guy who spends so much time making sure I eat at the same time every day?

I guess what I’m trying to say is that for so long now I’ve felt as if I’ve so organized my life trying my very best to give it every possible chance to go according to what I think is right, what I feel is right, what helps me to feel right that I fear I’ve almost kind of stopped living life as rather all things seem to be fastened to either some schedule or some expectation or some personally held perspective or opinion that I’ve determined is what’s the very best of all options, best because I believe that it will best help me to either become what I hope to be or to remain what I wish to stay.

But there you have it. It all comes back so often to us and what we want, what we think, how we feel. And sure, I can’t say that those things don’t matter or aren’t important as, well, God gave us the ability to want, to think, to feel and to use all the above to ensure that what we do, what we say, what we think, who we are is the sum of everything we’ve chosen to be.

All so that one day we can be held utterly and solely responsible for all we’ve chosen to become.

But again, the problem’s become that we’ve been held to the flames of so very many things that this world says we should try or aim to be that we honestly don’t seem to have any concept or recollection of the utter simplicity in which and for which we were made. Instead we’ve all come to have so many plans and priorities and expectations that simply being God’s children has been all but completely lost behind our lists of things we have to get done if we’re to ensure that we can become whatever it is that we’ve become convinced we’re supposed to be instead.

Such as satisfied. Or pleased. Or impressed. Or impressive. Or successful. Or beautiful. Or strong. Or independent. Or intelligent. Or wise. Or confident. Or consistent. Or insistent upon our understandings of all the above as have been likely given unto us from the world around us having come upon their own understandings of what all those things mean and how best then to measure them so as to give us all some manner by which to measure how we’re doing and how our lives are going and where we can expect to be, who we should by then become whenever it is that we finally get wherever it is that this world says we should go as whoever it is that they think we should become.

All things summed up in everything from one-pot dinners to 5-minute abs.

All because we’ve all become so consumed with comparison and competition and comfort and confidence and a life lived with a complete lack of consequence that we’ve chosen to believe those things matter.

And they alongside so many others that we’ve no time nor probably even ability to count them. And that because, according to research, they say that a person has upwards of 6,200 distinct thoughts every single day.

How many of them are about something so simple as Christ and the truth of the Gospel, both being there to remind us that it’s not all on us to figure this out and that because, since we started trying to, we’ve only managed to become everything we were so not meant to be that God Himself came down in human flesh to put to death all the inhuman parts of what we’ve all all but forced this life to become.

We have fallen so far short of the glory of God and thus so far away from living anything even remotely close to the version of life He at first created way back in the Garden of Eden that Jesus had to be maimed, mocked, disfigured and transfigured all for us all to have even the chance to open our eyes, see finally then what all we’ve done to our lives thanks to all we’ve done within our lives, and to hopefully, having seen all that we’ve settled for, learn to stop settling so far short of a simple trust in the very God who loves us so very much that He sent His one and only Son to literally die for us so that we might happen to choose to finally lose all of this insistence upon our being the ones to figure out what’s best.

All because we’ve all managed to become of the ability to find our understanding of that which is best in such things as lust, in gluttony, in greed, in inhumanity, in hatred, in war, in violence, in competition, in comparison, in worry, in stress, in possessions we posses, in plans we’ve made and changes we haven’t gotten around to quite yet. We’ve found hope in it not raining on the weekend and our favorite snacks being on sale whenever we go grocery shopping. We’ve sought our peace in being left alone for five minutes by sending the kids outside and hoping they can find something to do that doesn’t for once include 300 questions.

We’ve even found a way to imagine that our best has already happened within what is a past that did in so many ways seem so very much better than whatever it is that we’re living through now.

Because, honestly, I can’t seem to personally see how having social media and using it to always argue about politics or sexual preferences or whether or not we should be allowed to kill babies and how much we hate everyone else is supposed to be better than back whenever people read books and went fishing and had family reunions and rode bikes and had dreams and actually believed that our dreams were meant for more than just more things.

In truth I don’t think we’ve any of us had any idea as to what this life is supposed to be or be about since about the age of 3 or 4. Because ever since then we started having more and more of this wicked world forced upon us to the point in which there are now so many expectations always expected of us that we all look for ways to assuage the stress.

And that in ways that are not always for our best.

Because many have resorted to doing drugs to dull the worry or drinking alcohol to quiet the fear. Some have turned to food to make them happy or to porn to stop feeling so lonely. Others have stumbled into eating disorders just trying to get healthy while others turn to chemicals to fast-track their weight loss. We’ve become collectors of things we don’t need, planners of days that will never come, owners of dreams that only tell us of what more we need to reach them.

We’ve all become so tainted by this world that most of us would run away from Heaven simply because it’s everything we know nothing about and not much scares us more than that which we don’t understand because if we can’t understand it then we can’t control it either. And if we can’t control it, can’t own it, can’t find it or define it, then it must not be all that important because this world’s convinced us that we alone know what best is.

And thus anything we don’t know or can’t see can’t be whatever best is supposed to be.

Anything that doesn’t look good can’t then be good. Anything that doesn’t feel good must be wrong. Anything that feels strange or weird or awkward can’t be right. Anything that hurts can’t help. Everything that helps would never cause us pain. Stress is a good thing as it inspires us to keep trying harder and harder to climb higher and higher upon what is this invisible, imaginary ladder that we’ve all been pointed toward and asked to ascend with every plan to find our every joy and hope and purpose waiting at the top.

Only to again find such things as addiction and worry and lust and gluttony are the rungs we have to trust to keep our spirits up in a world that tears us down all the time.

And we’ve all become so broken down and beaten that we’ve just agreed to go along with all the world tells us to be and promises will help should we fall short of their ever-changing expectations.

Which is why Jesus came to tell us that whoever wishes to be wise must at first become a fool to the ways of this world and the many deceptive and destructive and just plain deadly things done within what’s become a way of life that believes that death is only the end of everything.

He came to show us that death is only the beginning of everything better.

For within that promise we can and should find a purpose that inspires us to rid our lives of all that we’ve allowed to define them thus far. Within that hope we should come to know that this world is not our home and nor then do we need to feel as if we belong where the empty grave says we don’t. Within His mercy we should find our hearts hurried to doing good as He defined it, things so simple as loving one another and looking incessantly unto our Father rather than to ourselves. Within His love should, all of us, recognize the humility that causes life to feel alive and that it then has nothing to do with how we feel, what we have, what all we’ve done nor even what little we can.

Because He came to show us that there is nothing that we can do to overcome or take back or make up for all we’ve been.

But that rather all we’re supposed to do is to trust in the work He’s long since finished for us that has then made us once again right with God.

And to then spend the rest of our time on this earth doing good things, helping those around us, telling everyone we can all about how He found us and all that’s changed about us since He did.

All because we were all created to be His. And while all of us have become everything but that, done everything other than everything He’s called us to do, worried about everything but the few simple things He asks us to, He has indeed made the way for our to be made new so that we too can do something different, something better.

So that we can be, in Him, something better.

It’s clear to see that we’ve all forgotten who we are as we’ve all lived our lives thus far seeking our identity inside everything from greed to lust to laziness to gluttony. But friends, while those things always help us to feel good or look good or think we’re living good, that they only do so for just a moment or two ought to prove that they cannot offer us anything that lasts.

And we’ve all tried enough of them to know that!

That’s why Jesus promised us such things as peace and rest and joy and forever.

It’s all because we’re not a people created to die nor thus to live these lives in such temporary pleasures or plans as we all of us have. Rather we were created in God’s image and Jesus came to show us how simple it is to just be His.

Easy? No. Comfortable? Not always.

But it is immeasurably simple to trust in Him because that cross He took up proves He won’t let us down and that grave He emptied out, well, that just says that we don’t have to plan on staying in it either.

Even though our many sins and stains and shames tell us that we deserve to.

None of this is about what we deserve unless we continue to refuse to put our faith, our hope, our trust in the fact that He endured what He didn’t deserve.

Does it make sense that He’d do all that for us? No.

Would it be called faith if it did?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold